Beyond the Fence
by LastLeaf
Summary: Divorced with a failing business, Peeta Mellark doesn't think he can sink any lower. Until he finds himself attracted to his neighbor's 20 year-old niece.


**Note: This was written as a gift for thebluelake as part of AO3's Hunger Games Spring Fling Fic Exchange.**

* * *

The first sight that always caught Peeta's eye when he looked out his back window and into Haymitch Abernathy's yard was the swimming pool. Their houses were on opposite sides of the block so their backyards met in the middle, separated only by the rickety wooden fence that surrounded Haymitch's house. His own yard was nothing special, just grass maintained to a level of perfection that gave it an almost artificial quality. And he really wasn't much for horticulture. There weren't any flowerbeds or shrubs or a garden lined with crisp vegetables and fragrant herbs. Nothing he could plant would be as interesting to look at as the wild expanse behind Haymitch's place, anyway.

In the two years Peeta had been his neighbor, he'd never seen Haymitch attempt to mow his yard. For that matter, he wasn't entirely sure Haymitch even owned a mower. The few times Peeta offered to help, Haymitch would hurl empty bottles and epithets at him until Peeta finally gave up. So beyond the fence, instead of fit-for-a-golf-course perfection, were thick blades of crab grass dotted yellow with dandelions each Spring, noxious weeds that climbed the exterior of the house, and wildflowers that lasted until the first frost of the season. In the middle of it all, nearly swallowed up by the tall grasses and brush around it, sat a rusted metal structure that had once been a child's swingset, now a haven for wasps that nested in every available crevice. The pool was next to it, the faded azure plastic cracked and filthy, dry as dust. A thicket of berries crawled up the ladder that no feet had touched in years. Inside were two thin maple saplings that must have sprung up through cracks in the bottom, with spindly branches that peaked out over the top, making the whole thing look like a gigantic, neglected potted plant.

Peeta wasn't sure he had ever seen anything more heartbreaking. Or more beautiful.

That morning, though, something else managed to divert his attention. For once the curtains covering Haymitch's sliding glass back door were open, giving him an inadvertent peak inside the kitchen. A girl who looked to be in her early twenties set a plate of food in front of him. He started yelling but the sound was muffled and Peeta couldn't tell exactly _what_ Haymitch was yelling. The girl yelled back, though no words were discernible. Just noise.

He wondered who she was. Haymitch rarely had visitors. It was hard to get a good look at her. She kept moving in and out of sight. From what he could tell, she was petite with a lean, athletic body, with coal-colored hair tied back into a braid that fell just below her ribcage. Peeta watched as Haymitch flung a forkful of what looked like eggs toward her, and she slid open the door and stepped outside.

"If you wanted someone to be nice to you all the time, you would've asked Prim to live here instead," he heard her shout.

"If the kid weren't still in high school I would have, _sweetheart_." That last word was tinged with too much hostility to be a term of endearment.

The girl slammed the door shut and turned around, and her eyes unexpectedly caught his. She scowled at him. He moved away from the window.

It was his day off from the bakery and because of that, he had a full day of nothing to look forward to. He had a lot of days off lately. Business had been slow ever since the new Walmart opened down the street. Among its many amenities, like the Starbucks and the free Wi-Fi, was an in-store bakery. With low, low prices. Where customers could buy their bread and cakes and pastries and pick up toilet paper or a quart of motor oil all in the same convenient location. His own bakery, squeezed between a consignment shop and a vacant building that used to house a bookstore, was a much emptier place than it had been just a year ago. He knew the economical thing to do would be to lay people off and do most of the work himself, but jobs were hard to come by, and so he made sure to give his employees as many hours as he could afford. The economy would eventually turn around, he told himself. Because if there was one thing Peeta Mellark was good at, it was clinging to the hope that things would eventually get better, though more and more often he was struck with the likelihood that he'd be waiting forever.

* * *

He awoke to the sound of singing in the distance. He'd been dreaming when he heard it, the sound just floating there in the background, then, as he made the fuzzy transition into wakefulness, realized it hadn't stopped. It was a female voice, low and throaty. He wouldn't call it angelic or birdlike or any of the standard clichés to describe a beautiful voice. It had a raw, sultry quality to it. Definitely not a angel. Whoever it belonged to had feet planted firmly on Earth.

He threw on a pair of pants but no shirt, and followed the sound until he stared out his kitchen window. That girl who lived at Haymitch's house was on her bare knees, in a burgundy tank top and khaki shorts and no shoes, plucking weeds from the cracks in the patio. An orange fishing hat shielded her face from the unrelenting August sun. He was pretty sure he recognized her song, an old standard his father had liked years ago. When Peeta opened the window for a better listen, the screen popped out and landed with a plop on his own cement patio. The girl abruptly stopped. Their eyes locked for a moment, even through the window. She dropped the handful of leaves and stems crushed in her fist and retreated back into the house.

Peeta wouldn't be able to stop thinking about that voice, about the girl who possessed it. Even days later, it continued to haunt him.

* * *

The girl's name was Katniss. He knew this because he heard Haymitch shouting it followed by the sound of shattering glass while Peeta mowed his lawn one morning. They were always shouting at one another, Peeta noticed. He never knew what about.

Katniss, as she had almost every morning in the two weeks she'd been there, slammed the back door behind her as she trudged her way through the backyard. He'd never seen her without a glass barrier before. His heart sped up against his will. The force of the door's impact caused a piece of siding to pop out of place above her. She strained on her tiptoes to reach it and push it back where it belonged, making her tank top – the same one she wore the day he caught her singing – ride up, exposing a strip of smooth, olive skin. The garment appeared well-worn, fraying at the bottom. A loose thread dangled below and swayed like a pendulum with each movement she made. He found himself fascinated with it, squinting in the sunlight for a better look. Foolishly envious of it because of its proximity to her bare skin.

He had to pry his eyes away so she wouldn't catch him staring again as he continued to push his lawn mower forward.

That night as he lay in bed, he thought of that loose thread hanging from Katniss' red tank top. He imagined tugging on it, lightly, of unraveling every inch of fabric until there was nothing left covering her. He thought of her pert breasts that probably fit perfectly in his palms. His hand traveled below his sheets and slipped beneath the waistband of his shorts. He was already hard. As he stroked himself, he speculated on the color of her nipples. Of what they might taste like. Emboldened, he allowed himself to whimper her name when he felt himself getting close. He tried not to think about the fact that he was jacking off to a neighbor he'd never spoken to. Who was probably just a little over half his age. But those thoughts were pushed aside when he remembered the way she sang, and imagined the kinds of noises she might make if he fucked her.

It was the hardest he'd come in recent memory, but he was so ashamed he wouldn't even let himself enjoy it.

* * *

The irony struck him, as he stood there with his phone cradled to his ear, that there was once a time in those last strained years of his marriage when he wanted desperately for Clove to communicate with him more. "You're a real piece of shit, Peeta, you know that?"

She was legally required to inform him when she wanted to take their five year-old son Max out of the state. For some reason, it was very important to Clove that she take him to DisneyWorld the week before school started.

"This is my weekend with him," he repeated firmly, but Clove cut him off before he could say more.

"Cato and I both have the week off. You'll be right there when we come back. It's not like you ever go anywhere anyway."

He wanted to retort that Cato had _every_ week off. The man was unemployed. For someone so _promising_ with an Ivy League education, Cato Fuller had a difficult time keeping a job thanks to his volatile temper.

Peeta's thirteen year marriage to Clove soured approximately a nanosecond after the honeymoon. He would say that they had become strangers living in the same house, but looking back, they were never anything more than strangers who occasionally sat across from one another at restaurants or next to each other in darkened theaters, and moved together between their sheets. They never really talked about anything important. When Clove did speak to him, it was usually to complain, or go into great detail about an item she wanted to purchase, or go on about work. Soon, even that talk ceased. Except when it came to Cato, her then-coworker and former childhood nemesis. He and Clove had attended the same private school together. They hadn't been friends. Clove had been adamant about that. They were rivals, always competing for the top grades, awards, scholarships. They barely tolerated each other, or so she said.

Peeta had always been aware of the rumors, and in that last year, Clove didn't try very hard to hide it.

The infidelity had merely been the final straw, of course. The truth was, he had more unhappy memories of his marriage than happy ones. They stayed together out of convenience, mostly. And maybe, if he was truly being honest with himself, part of why he'd stayed for so long was to prove some sort of point. To himself. To his family. To everyone. When Peeta brought Clove home the first time, on Spring Break during their sophomore year of college, his mother had laughed, looking him in the eye and telling him he could never keep a "quality girl like her" interested for long. His response was to stand ramrod straight, look her directly in the eye with equal intensity, and to simply tell her she was wrong.

Conversely, when he met Clove's parents, her father took an instant dislike to him. No one was good enough for his little girl. That only fueled her attraction. Peeta would eventually win the man over, but by then it didn't matter much anymore.

The only good thing to come out of his marriage was Max. Clove had never wanted kids, and they were always very careful, so it came as a shock when Clove became pregnant. But Peeta had been elated. Because of his own childhood, he'd always questioned, somewhere in the back of his mind, whether parenting was something that he could – _should_ – take on. That perhaps there lay in him an undercurrent of darkness threatening to burst forward. The kind that made his mother turn ordinary household items like the rolling pin or a curtain rod into something to fear, and then, when he grew too big to intimidate physically, she fashioned her words into weapons. Fifty percent of his genetic makeup came from this woman. The thought scared him to death. So he had respected Clove's wishes. He'd wanted her more than the vague idea of family and children that he hadn't allowed himself to consider until the day Clove kicked over the wastebasket, stomped out of their shared bathroom, and glumly announced that they were having a baby. In that instant it came to him as clear as a breeze – what kind of person he truly was, the kind of father he vowed to become. He didn't know why he'd ever doubted himself.

As little Max grew, his features became sharper, more defined, with his straight, but unruly, dark hair and a cowlick in front that refused to obey a hairbrush; small, shrewd eyes the color of espresso beans; a button-like nose. In most ways Max was very much Clove's son. But there was something oddly familiar about him, too, that was neither Clove nor Peeta. In fact, there didn't seem to be anything of the Mellark side in him at all.

A fact Peeta's mother would gleefully taunt him about. She'd throw it in his face at every available opportunity that the boy looked nothing like their side of the family, that he looked a lot more like Cato. That he was throwing away his hard-earned money on a child who wasn't even his. "But then," she'd snidely add, "you never were very good with your money. Always tossing it away like it grows on trees. Just like your father. Oh well. At least little Max will end up with more sense than the two of you. That Cato person went to Harvard, didn't he?"

Her words stung, but none of that mattered. Peeta had been the one in the delivery room when Max was born. He had cut the umbilical cord. It was Peeta who had painted the nursery and assembled the crib. And stayed up nights soothing an infant Max when he was colicky. He bandaged up the scraped knees and repaired the broken toys. Max was _his_ son. Even if he did have Cato's chin.

When Peeta repeated himself, that it was his weekend according to the custody agreement and he wasn't about to let her change that, Clove went in for the kill. "Did you hear that?" She was no longer speaking directly into the phone, but made no effort to cover the receiver. She wanted Peeta to hear this. "Daddy doesn't want you to see Mickey Mouse. He doesn't think you should have any fun."

Peeta could hear Max's tiny wails of protest on the other end. He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. Clove handed Max the phone. Peeta wished him a good trip to Disney.

* * *

He'd avoided this ever since that night he thought of Katniss and let his traitorous body get carried away. It was only his sense of duty as Haymitch's neighbor that propelled him forward. He did this every week or so, but he'd lapsed pretty badly. Almost a month had gone by since the last time he'd dropped off leftover bread from his bakery. Haymitch normally wasn't particularly receptive to the gifts, but Peeta always managed to talk him into accepting them.

He remembered the first time he set foot inside Haymitch's house. He was overcome with the powerful stench of decay, probably rotting food and decomposing rats. Droppings littered every surface. Dirty dishes sat dormant on the kitchen table and formed a pile in the sink. Garbage overflowed in every wastebasket and empty liquor bottles stood on shelves and tabletops like trophies.

For someone who was supposed to make a comfortable living, as per the crumbs of gossip he'd heard from Effie Trinket, Peeta's neighbor across the street, Haymitch's money hadn't been spent on furniture. The kitchen table looked relatively new, but cheap, like something you'd buy for a college student's first apartment. The kitchen joined with a small sitting room with almost nothing in it. Across from an old television set was a lumpy, threadbare couch. There was a groove in the middle cushion where Haymitch probably spent most of his time.

Peeta always walked the long way, around the block, to get to the front door. He rang the bell a few times before someone answered. He'd almost given up and left. To his horror, it was Katniss on the other side of the door. She'd obviously been doing housework. She held a bottle of floor cleaner tightly in her gloved hand. The other gripped the doorknob.

Not even inside the house, he made note of the improved odor. Now it only smelled faintly of pine-scented garbage.

"Can I help you?"

"These are for Haymitch." He was afraid if he looked her in the eyes she'd somehow be able to read his mind and know the disgusting things he'd thought about her.

"We didn't order anything."

"I know. These are left over from my bakery." He extended a hand to her. "Hi. I'm Peeta Mellark."

Her eyes narrowed. Her hand remained at her side. "What's the catch?"

"Pardon me?"

"I mean, you're just giving them to him? For nothing?"

"I'm just trying to be a good neighbor."

"And he just takes them?"

"Yeah. We've had this arrangement for a couple years now." He flashed her a genial smile, hoping it would soften her toward him. It didn't.

"He shouldn't be doing that." she said. "He shouldn't be taking stuff from you without paying for it."

"I can't even sell these anymore. I'd take them myself, but my freezer's already filled. Really, I'd have to throw them away. I would hate to see them go to waste."

The mention of potentially wasting food appeared to have an effect on her. This was clearly the correct tactic to take. Still, she raised an eyebrow at him. "So basically you've been giving my uncle garbage-rolls."

She wasn't smiling, but something new and not entirely hostile sparked in her eyes. He wondered if this was her version of teasing."Hey, how about you taste these garbage-rolls before you pass judgment," he teased back.

Reluctantly, she took the bag from him. "Thank you," she said, before giving him one last wary look, and then went back inside.

* * *

On one morning a particularly loud argument erupting between Katniss and Haymitch brought Peeta outside. It was another one of his days off, otherwise he'd have been at the bakery hours ago. Katniss was already out there, pacing around the yard on her cellphone, knee-deep in weeds. When she hung up, she looked even more dejected than before.

Peeta crossed his yard to meet her at the fence. He hadn't put on shoes and the soggy grass squished between his toes. "Hey. You all right?"

She took a few steps toward him. "My car won't start. It does that sometimes after it's been raining hard. My friend Madge says it's probably the spark plugs or something."

"I take it you need to go somewhere?"

I have class in an hour."

"And it's not something that you can miss, huh?"

She flicked at the top of a milkweed plant beside her, watching the white tufts scatter in the air. "Usually I'd just borrow someone's notes, but there's an exam today. Car trouble isn't a good enough excuse. Someone has to have died before Dr. Aurelius'll give out a make-up exam."

"Where do you go to school, Katniss?"

Her gray eyes widened at his use of her name, but all the same, answered: "Capitol."

Capitol University was a relatively short drive, but a hell of a long walk. "If your car has trouble with the rain, why doesn't Haymitch just let you park in the garage?"

"I can't. It's crammed with a bunch of his old junk."

"And he won't let you drive his car?"

"He doesn't have one. They took his license a couple years ago, so he sold it."

It embarrassed him that he didn't know this. So much for being a good neighbor. How could he live near someone all this time and not know that he never left the house? There was a liquor store and a grocery store within walking distance, so perhaps he did get out, but Peeta still couldn't help but feel disconcerted by this new information. At least he could somewhat make this right by helping Katniss, or so he rationalized. "I'll tell you what: let me grab my keys and I'll drop you off. Is there someone who can bring you home?"

She shook her head. "I have classes until late, and my friends work in the evening."

"What time are you done?"

"My last class ends at 8:20," she told him.

"Then I'll pick you up at 8:20."

* * *

She slid into the passenger seat of his Dodge Charger, as tense as a curled leaf beside him. He couldn't be sure whether her apparent discomfort was with accepting this favor or having to endure a twenty minute commute with a man she barely knew. Probably both.

She smelled like cut grass and maple syrup. And Pine-Sol. He noticed her eying his satellite radio and offered to let her control the music. He honestly didn't know what twenty year-olds listened to. As she scrolled through the stations, she landed on, of all things, a channel playing jazz standards.

He wasn't familiar with the singer or the song. This was his parents' music growing up, not his. They'd been forty years old by the time he was born. His brothers were already in high school. Johnny was about to head off to college. His parents had plans, dreams of travel, of being contented empty nesters. Peeta's unexpected arrival ruined all of that.

The sound of Katniss singing softly under her breath to the music caused him to turn toward her. He wanted to turn down the volume to hear her better. As if sensing someone's eyes on her, she stopped suddenly. The silence between them stretched until the next highway exit when Peeta finally said, "I heard you sing a few weeks ago."

"I know," she muttered, her eyes trained on the floor.

"That song...it was one of my father's favorites."

"Skylark," she supplied, still not looking up at him.

Desperate to keep the conversation going, he asked, "So is that your major? Music?"

"No. Business Administration."

"Your voice is beautiful, by the way."

Her cheeks flushed ever-so-slightly. "I don't sing much anymore."

"Well, you look happy when you sing. Especially that last time, when you sang Skylark, funny enough."

She finally glanced up and craned her neck to look at him. "Why is that funny?"

He shrugged. "It's a pretty sad song."

"Is it? I guess I never paid that much attention. The lyrics are all about birds and meadows..."

He hummed thoughtfully. "It's about...wanting someone to love you...wondering if anyone ever will."

"So she asks a bird to help her find it?"

"Seems pretty hopeless, doesn't it?"

"Someone should tell her that what she's looking for is overrated. Or him. Depending on who's singing."

"You're a little young to be that jaded."

Her lips formed a tight line across her face. "I've seen enough. Age has nothing to do with it."

They sat in silence during three entire songs. Katniss didn't attempt to sing any of them.

When they reached the campus, Katniss directed him to where she should be dropped off. Her gaze briefly met his as she climbed out of the car. Her eyes flitted away. "Thanks," she said.

It was only when she walked away that Peeta began to wonder just what it was that Katniss had seen. How she could seemingly write off the concept of love, yet still be able to sing about it so convincingly. Even after everything he'd been through, he couldn't fathom hardening his heart in that way, as damaged and neglected as it was.

He thought of that swimming pool where Katniss lived, sad and broken, yet somehow signs of life had attached themselves to it. Peeta hoped the same could be said for his heart someday, that something real could take root and grow inside it. Because if there was one thing in this life that Peeta Mellark could do, it was hope.


End file.
